The Playground Wars

Never once did I lose a playground fight.

There were many. They were all nasty. Almost all of them had something to do with other kids’ perceptions of me as a “crippled kid.”

Each match was different. I lived through them mostly because my father had prepared me for such events when he taught me the rudiments of fisticuffs.

Dad showed me how to hold my hands in fists. He taught me how to “lead” and “fake” with my left and how to punch with my right.

The other kids didn’t have my Dad. They knew nothing about boxing. They just presumed they could easily vanquish me because of my disabled condition.

The children of the peasants from Mexico seemed particularly interested in whipping my skinny ass simply because my physical condition and appearance offended them.

None of these playground antagonists was my equal, however. Not even Jimmy Aichelman the athlete, son of the Fort Lupton veterinarian. But it wasn’t that I was such a good little fighter. It was that the other kids were untrained, unprepared.

For the first three years of grade school, I wore a corrective and supportive brace on my right leg, waist to toe.

On the day I was finally permitted to leave the brace at home and wear “normal” shoes, I proudly pranced around school with my new burgundy wingtip oxfords. That day in the lunchroom Jimmy made fun of my new shoes. Uh-oh.

In retaliation I picked up my little dish of Cole slaw and dumped it upside-down on his head. He was not amused.

A few minutes later on the playground, Jimmy figured it was payback time. He challenged me. A circle of kids surrounded us. The fight was on.

I led with my left. I feinted with my left. I hit him a solid one square in the nose with my right. He went to the ground. Problem solved.

After that, we were friends, somehow. He even invited me to come to his house that summer to swim in his family’s new enclosed pool.

Then there was Tommy Phillips. Tommy was a year younger than I. Never did I learn why he was angry with me. He challenged me on the playground.

Same tried and true technique. Feint. Smack. Square in the nose. He cried. Some of the Mexican boys came over at that point and held him by the arms and encouraged me to hit him some more.

But that wasn’t going to be good enough for me. I walked up to the little red-haired captive, caressed his freckled cheek with an open hand. Then I kissed him on the forehead.

Strangely enough, we never did become friends. Later on, he and his brother Cyril shot my dog and stole our construction toys.

I think he didn’t like the kiss thing. Near as I can figure.

Then there was “Hendry.” Hendry was the English pronunciation of “Enrique.” The rolled R in Enrique becomes a D in Hendry.

Hendry was cool. Long before Elvis, Hendry’s black hair was greased back in a duck tail. Baggy pants. Platform shoes with a white stripe painted around the sole stitching.

Hendry was my first and only kick-boxing opponent. In addition to being highly stylish, the heavy platform shoes were also sometimes used as weapons.

About the second time Hendry kicked at me, I figured out to reach out and grab him by the shoe. Then I simply lifted his leg skyward and he fell flat on his ass. His friends laughed. My problem was solved. We never became friends, but he left me alone after that.

Another event involved a kid with the last name of Markley. He was three years older than I; he had the audacity to steal the football with which some of us third graders were playing.

I stealthily followed him around the playground and came up behind him. I let him have a swift kick in the tailbone with my . . . stainless-steel-and-leather leg brace.

He went to the ground, screaming in pain. I was arrested and taken to the principal’s office, released later to the custody of my mother. Poor Mother. She was a teacher at that school.

Not every playground adversary had to be vanquished with violence. This was the case with Abraham DelGado.

Abraham was also a polio survivor. Some of the other boys thought that fact would make me and Abraham “equal,” so that meant we should fight.

He and I went around the corner of the school building, out of sight, and decided mutually not to fight. We came back to the other kids to report that our joust had been inconclusive.

Once a group of boys surrounded me after school, determined to teach me a lesson. I began swinging my coronet case around in a circle. No one got hit. Good thing. I was unhurt, as well.

Having lived through Fort Lupton Grade School, having survived that hell hole, I was next faced with Brighton Junior High. I tell you what. Life is tough sometimes.

At BJHS, the weapon of choice was not the platform shoes but the belt. My defense against that was to pull the kid’s pants down at all costs. It was hard to chase the crippled kid with your pants around your ankles. Hello Mr. Stuart, it’s just me again, arrested during the day’s tennis court wars.

That’s one thing I liked about being graduated from high school. For the most part, the wars were over.

But. One late summer afternoon, I decided that since I was of age (18) I would stop in a bar and get a beer. Hey. It’s my right. My privilege. My duty.

I picked “The Alamo,” on Highway 85 just north of Brighton near the Kar Vu drive in theater.

It’s fair to say that was a relatively naïve choice. Did I take a tumble that there might be a reason the place was actually called “The Alamo?” Not a clue.

I was about half way through a glass of 3.2 draft beer when I noticed that several young men had formed a half-circle behind me. They were asking, basically, “What the hell are you doing in here, Paddy?”

Looking around, I couldn’t find my coronet case anywhere. Neither did I have a knife or a gun. Pool cue would have been nice. But no.

After being spoiled with a lifetime record of pugilistic victories, it looked like I was finally going to lose one. A sort of filthy thrill went through me when I realized I was going to die.

Then a voice came from the depths of the bar, back in the dark by the pool table. The voice said, “Hey you guys, leave him alone. That’s only Tommy. I went to high school with him.”

It was Eloy Trujillo, Class of 60. Thanks Eloy. I owe you one.

-0-

Word of the week: Decorum. In Latin, it’s the neuter of decorus, meaning fit or proper. In English we take it to mean whatever is suitable or proper. It means congruity, propriety, in good taste. Decorum is an act or requirement of polite behavior.

The teacher beheld the student. He saw a young man with his hat on backwards, chewing a fat wad of Juicy Fruit. “Can we at least have a modicum of decorum here?” he asked.

How much is a modicum? See you next week.